Chromatin signature reveals over a thousand highly conserved large non-coding RNAs in mammals.

Nature
Authors
Keywords
Abstract

There is growing recognition that mammalian cells produce many thousands of large intergenic transcripts. However, the functional significance of these transcripts has been particularly controversial. Although there are some well-characterized examples, most (>95%) show little evidence of evolutionary conservation and have been suggested to represent transcriptional noise. Here we report a new approach to identifying large non-coding RNAs using chromatin-state maps to discover discrete transcriptional units intervening known protein-coding loci. Our approach identified approximately 1,600 large multi-exonic RNAs across four mouse cell types. In sharp contrast to previous collections, these large intervening non-coding RNAs (lincRNAs) show strong purifying selection in their genomic loci, exonic sequences and promoter regions, with greater than 95% showing clear evolutionary conservation. We also developed a functional genomics approach that assigns putative functions to each lincRNA, demonstrating a diverse range of roles for lincRNAs in processes from embryonic stem cell pluripotency to cell proliferation. We obtained independent functional validation for the predictions for over 100 lincRNAs, using cell-based assays. In particular, we demonstrate that specific lincRNAs are transcriptionally regulated by key transcription factors in these processes such as p53, NFkappaB, Sox2, Oct4 (also known as Pou5f1) and Nanog. Together, these results define a unique collection of functional lincRNAs that are highly conserved and implicated in diverse biological processes.

Year of Publication
2009
Journal
Nature
Volume
458
Issue
7235
Pages
223-7
Date Published
2009 Mar 12
ISSN
1476-4687
URL
DOI
10.1038/nature07672
PubMed ID
19182780
PubMed Central ID
PMC2754849
Links
Grant list
U54 HG003067 / HG / NHGRI NIH HHS / United States
R01 HG004037 / HG / NHGRI NIH HHS / United States
U54 HG003067-05 / HG / NHGRI NIH HHS / United States
R01 HG004037-02 / HG / NHGRI NIH HHS / United States
DP1 OD003958 / OD / NIH HHS / United States